Hollywood handgun portrayal BS

Yeah you can on a Beretta, I did it to my kids, impressed the crap out of him. But I do a lot of things at home that I would never do in real life if you know what I mean.

In real life the holder of the Beretta only has to pull back a smidgon and you're screwed. But if written in the scrip and the Beretta holder is told to stand there, it's fairly easy.

Just don't try it on the street.

With TV, anything is possible. I learned to keep my mouth shut about such shows. My wife likes the CSI shows, I use to drive her nuts. I was a Uniform CSI Instructor in my LE days. I would ruin the shows for her so I pretty much just keep my mouth shut.

Same with TV cops disarming bombs.

If life was like TV, I"d go into the ammo business. Westerns too, if I lived in the old TV west, I'd get rich being a grave digger.
 
icedog88, I am not sure of changes to the newer models. My rationale for pushing back on the slide wasn't mechanical necessity, but to buy time - the weapon is disabled while I try to push the disassembly button and drop the disassembly lever.

BlueTrain, the first thing is to get off the line, just like you would for a knife attack. I'm not particularly fast, but training to instinctively move off the line and get to better positions can make up for a lot.

kraigwy, all the shooter has to do is pull back, and keep the grabber from staying with him. Easy to do, with decent training (weapon retention and/or martial arts), yet of the several people I've tried this with, most did what I expected - which was try to pull with their hands, and not actually use body weight or legs. It amazes me how many people carry, who have no clue about retention or takeaways.

All, the reason why the Beretta gets singled out is that the disassembly lever does not require a particular slide position. A SIG has a scalloped cutout in the slide, that the lever has to align with before it can be fully rotated. Other designs require a trigger pull or some other step. 1911, CZ, BHP all require a slide alignment, and the takedown lever isn't so easily moved or pushed.

But the Beretta is very susceptible, as there are no cutouts in the slide that have to be aligned, and no requirement for a trigger pull. Push the button, and the lever can drop. Drop the lever, and the slide will come off.
 
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MLeake, I was referring to the actual takedown lever. On the new 92FS models, the lever has a button incorporated that you must push in, then rotate the lever. I don't seem to recall the button on the M9. Faulty memory on my part or indoctrination surpassing my conscious thought? :D
 
It's entertainment. I'd rather see off the wall nonsense then a bunch of guys handling guns like they are supposed to. That would get boring fast :)
 
"Mike, and other sarcastic ones, have you ever tried it?"

Nope. Had a Beretta for 10 years and I never took it apart.

My personal favorite move like this is taking a screwdriver and removing the screw that holds the cylinder in place on a Smith revolver, popping it out, and showing it to the shocked aggressor before inserting it into his ear.

A 12th level ninja master, or a machinist's mate first class, can do it in less than .5 seconds.

Thinking that this really is silliness, I did a quick search on the Washington Post, and imagine my surprise when I came across 147 separate incidents in just the last two weeks alone!

Police aren't sure whether it's a single disassembler, or whether there's a roving band of disassemblers at work...


OK, reality time.

Two points.

First, what is POSSIBLE and what is PRACTICAL are often two very, very different things.

Second, if you let someone waltz right up to you to the point where they can disarm you, you deserve to get your ass kicked.
 
I recently watched a tv show where a bank robber pulled a glock and a cop pulled out the mag and racked the slide, not quite the same, but I think its way more likely then pulling the slide off the gun.
 
Yeah, that's a Glock. Slide won't come off unless striker is decocked via trigger pull.

Beretta is a different animal.

POSSIBLE and PRACTICAL would be valid differentiations, Mike, except for a couple of problems:

1) Original claim was that it was IMPOSSIBLE;

2) A few of us came in and said, actually that one example is possible, just not easily achieved - and we took abuse from people who kept saying it was impossible.

So now that a few more have come in and said, oh, yeah, this is hard to do but it can be done, the terms are changing...

As far as letting somebody walk right up to you to the point where they can disarm you, if you pull against a mugger, where exactly do you think he's going to be? Across the street?

And what was the lesson of the Tueller drill again? How far can an average person be and still close the distance by the time the average shooter can draw and pull off an aimed shot?

I forgot, though - some folks will never, ever be in any condition lower than red and could never possibly be surprised; that, and they will never allow anybody they don't know to get inside 21 feet...
 
I take issue with movie gun myths that are potentially going to become damaging if accepted by the gun-oblivious community.

If somebody calls an M16 a 'gun', or somebody fires 25 rounds out of a standard 92fs mag in a movie, I'm good with that.


What I'm NOT good with are things like this (from a movie):
"That's full of hollow-points. When they go in, they bounce and ricochet, until all that's left is paste."

...because I then have to hear people say, "hollow points shouldn't even be legal!"

This has come up.
 
s far as letting somebody walk right up to you to the point where they can disarm you, if you pull against a mugger, where exactly do you think he's going to be? Across the street?"

So, you're just going to be standing stock still, gun held out in an offering to "please, take the slide off my gun?"

Ever notice how this happens in the movies? The guy holding the gun is standing there like a statue, letting the nemisis strip the slide off his gun as if he's never seen anyone move before and the concept is foreign to him.

So I guess that means that you're not fighting back, you're not resisting in any way, you're just standing there like a statue and offering yourself up to either a case of extreme ninja like prowess, or the ultimate in bad luck.

If that's all the better a defensive plan you have, I'd suggest not carrying a gun at all.
 
Mike, normally I am the guy preaching that concealed carriers should get at least basic retention training. I get a fair amount of flack from guys who say they are too old, too crippled, etc... Besides, they have a gun, they don't need no hand to hand silliness.

So I think there actually are quite a few people out there who would not have the first clue about how to counter a grab, or how to draw if physically attacked.

It would not surprise me if that were the majority.

As far as whether it can be done... A narcotics detective friend has disarmed at least three dealers who pulled on him at close quarters during undercover buys. Trained, mentally prepared people can be unpleasant surprises for people who think they are in control just because they are armed.

Meanwhile, note that you have now changed the conditions of the argument - it is no longer "Is it possible or is it BS that the Beretta can be disabled and disassembled with one hand?". You have now made it "Is it a good percentage technique against an alert shooter who has trained in retention?"

IE, you realized your initial claim was too broad; you are redefining the argument rather than acknowledge that; and you are throwing veiled insults at my supposed lack of retention training as a misdirection.

(Edit: Or, you might be implying that CCW types should actually learn some retention skills, because determined attackers can throw some curveballs - such as pushing slides out of battery.)

(Second Edit: It takes one hand to grab a gun; I find in training that disarms work better if, instead of using both hands on the shooter's gun, I use the other hand to hit him in the face, threaten his eyes, or poke him in the throat. People don't perform at their usual IDPA / USPSA etc levels when they are gagging, blinking, or trying not to get hit. Leg sweeps, kicks to the knee, etc can come into play, too. The times I have succeeded with the Beretta trick in training, you can bet I had distracted and or unbalanced my training partner - which gave me time for my hand on the gun to work the controls.

No, I can't do it in one swift move like Jet Li or Statham, but is that now going to become a criterion, too?)
 
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I just saw Jason Statham do this in Transporter 2. I think he did it in Transporter 1 also. Of course it's BS but it looks cool when he does it.:rolleyes:
 
I didn't see Transporter 2, but I would bet he did it with another Beretta. The design of the gun mechanically allows the possibility; most other autos do not. IE, The prop guy does not have to modify a Beretta in any way to make the "stunt" work. The actor or stunt man just has to be shown how to do it.

There are tons of gun errors made by Hollywood, from 50 shot cowboy revolvers, to 7.62 miniguns that require a vehicle's electrical power being carried and shot by Minnesota governors, to Kate Beckinsale shooting her way through the floor of a building using a pair of 9mm full-autos. There are stunts that are pure BS.

The Beretta disassembly trick can actually be done. It is not easy, and I would hate to have to try it for real, but all it takes is puhing a button and flipping a lever simultaneously. Those that have Berettas should try it, before they say it isn't possible.

Difficult is not the same as Impossible, nor the same as BS.
 
The movie characters who quickly take the slides off Berettas aren't supposed to be "regular" people. Their characters are super ninja-types who are faster and with better dexterity than most folks.

One of the silliest movie firearms-related mistakes I've observed was during one of the Charlie's Angels movies. Lucy Liu was firing a jeep-mounted machine gun at the bad guys, when everything went to slo-mo, showing the ejected cases; however, the ejected "cases" weren't ejected cases, they were loaded rounds. :)

FWIW, the only reason Jack Bauer carried an HK in "24" is because the HK just happened to work better, unmodified, with blanks, than other brands that they tried. Got that, via my oldest son, from the horse's mouth. :cool:
 
Gunnut17: I saw that episode of CRIMINAL MINDS too. Great cinematography....lousy realism.

Whenever I see that or the Beretta Trick, my first thought is always "Don't drop the gun.....BEAT THEM TO DEATH WITH THE FRAME!!!".....
 
Is this really a topic of conversation? Of course you can just rip a slide off a gun, if you do it correctly of course. Thats why so many safety precuations exist in pistols today. Also, movies NEVER lie or exaggerate.
 
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